#Unbox Your Phone

Detailed First Impressions Of The Samsung Galaxy S7 And S8+

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and more precisely the S8+ looks to be the Godfather and Granddaddy of the Smart phone universe. It sets a whole new wheel and angle in motion to the rapidly evolving realm of smartphone technology. Arriving after many moon’s and months of speculation and full of as many leaks as fake news. The Samsung Galaxy S8+ has been released and unleashed to dominate and change the face of the smartphone market forever. Without looking at it, you’ve probably already heard about it and seen it reviewed. You already know it’s the shape of things to come and it’s arrived with style.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 + image-source-Flickr-Aaron Yoo

Samsung have fine tuned their duel edged curved display and made a whole new colourful palate of one-upmanship innovation they call ‘”The Infinity Display” with a virtually bezeless surface and seamless screen. Laying a tall order and the ground flat, crushing all opposition with a levelling playing field of exquisite design. The S8 and S8+ is a gem of technological creation and if you could travel back in time and take it with you and restrain your eye’s from it’s form and fanciful Super Amoled glow, if only for just a moment to look around you and interact with the past, our ancestors would either laugh or marvel at it’s wonder and behold it’s sparkling screen of alluring beauty as a sacred treasure. The one thing you’d have to remember in this make believe scenario is that the Samsung Galaxy S8+ is very real and very now. Casually on the other hand if could travel back in time, you’d definitely need to pick up some Solar Power to take with you and there’d probably still be a Samsung Galaxy S8 laying around somewhere in the far distant future.

image-source-Flickr-Kārlis Dambrāns

The new S8 and S8+ are both new flagship models from Samsung for the first half of 2017 released and available to order from Friday April 28th. If you’ve preordered the device already then today you’ll be sporting and sharing and even flaunting the latest in premium smartphone design for the first half of this year. A hushed and refined non-exploding new Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is expected to chime it’s release later in the fall. If you’re actively enjoying the great outdoors and the freedom mother nature has to offer right now, however obvious it may be the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ for all their worth should probably be left safely at home if you’re camping or sporting outdoors, a more robust simple brick and mortar candy-bar handset should suffice. There are no illusions here!

Both the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 + despite being both dustproof and iP68 water resistant are equipped with the modern reversible quick charging USB Type C. Also at a drop of a hat you can splash, sink and slip the phone into a depth of 1.5 meters in the pool for thirty minute without the phone turning into Gobbledegook and finding Nirvana. Outwardly and majestically both new Samsung flagship maidens are protected from slight accidental damage draped and coated with improved Gorilla Glass 5. Designed with aesthetics in mind and only fairly protected when naked. These are not smartphones you want to cover up in a third party protective phone case but the option is there. As with any smartphone it’s advisable and wise to always invest in a screen protector.

image-source-Flickr-Aaron Yoo

The duel curve infinity display is wrapped with Gorilla Glass 5 from rear to front of the phone melding perfectly to the hand. Many early adopters have reported the device as easy to manoeuvre and operate without awkward gymnastics and juggling with two hands. For those that haven’t exercised and acquired the muscle memory required when using a larger phone over an extended period of time, it might take a little getting used to. However, this is partially accounted for not just with ergonomic design but also balanced with the software integration of Android Nougat 7.0 equally blended and whisked together with a refined TouchWiz user interface. With all that said, rolling with the times and another always-on display, Samsung have included a new 3D-Touch sensitive home button.

image-source-Flickr-Aaron Yoo

Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ Multitasking & Customisation

Should you ever have the excessive need, Samsung have undeniably made the S8 and S8+ a supreme multitasking machines of wonder. As with the S7 edge you can split the display into two halves, running separate apps at the same time. One example of this is that you could view YouTube whilst browsing the internet via Google Chrome or make a new note for Evernote and any number of seemingly limitless compatible apps that support multi-screen settings. There’s plenty of options included in the options to help navigate and explore the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. Including a one handed mode which virtually shrinks the display down to a manageable size, which in turn can be altered for right or left handed use. There are multiple colour theme options for the UI as well as multitude of themes to choose directly on each handset.

image-source-Flickr-Kārlis Dambrāns

Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ Growing Pains

One popular forgivable pain and complaint is the fingerprint sensor. Which although works well seems to have been misplaced by Samsung. Settling it too far up out of the way at the back of the phone and too close to the 12MP camera with OIS. This culminates in a chain reaction of events with the unfortunate effect of accidentally brushing your fingerprint upon the 12MP, 28mm, f/1.7 lens by mistake. Blemishing the camera eye when unlocking with the rear mounted fingerprint sensor is a minor yet critical slight. This is compensated with Samsung giving the option to swipe your finger up and down the sensor to pull downwards the notification tray as if by magical command, which looks kind of cool and presumably helps with dexterity and getting to grips with the sensors placement. Another popular complaint is the Bixby button, Bixby hasn’t arrived with all it’s features intact at launch and it’s mounted button would have been better put to use if it included the option to remap and bind it to any other setting or shortcut key. Initially this was possible but with new updates Samsung have now made sure the Bixby button remains solely for  Bixby.

image-source-Flickr-Kārlis Dambrāns

Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ Security Settings

Samsung’s new S8 flagships have the latest security technology, following after the Note 7 there’s easy access to an almost instantaneous Iris scanner harnessing biometric security measures along with multiple pin and traditional security settings. Altogether you’ll have five security hurdles that can be setup to access the phone.

  • Face Recognition (Identifies your face very fast with quick access, yet easily hacked)
  • Iris Scanner which has been improved and easier to use
  • Traditional Pin, Pattern and password protection

Arguably the misplaced fingerprint sensor was probably the one and only design flaw and mistake that somehow ended up in the last minute detail of the S8 and S8 Plus. Either that or Samsung really just wants you to use the iris scanner. With this one mark against it and the enforced infamous Bixby button everything else is near enough and close to perfect and flawless.

image-source–Flickr-Aaron Yoo- Samsung Dex Station

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and the S8+ aren’t just powerful smartphones with the computing power of a desktop PC with Samsung Dex. Both flagships are pretty on the eyes and Samsung has become fashionable. Slowly the tide is turning where Apple has held the popular consensus impassively for far too long and charged far too much for their products and inferior power cords! The Samsung Galaxy S8 and it’s larger sibling the S8 + are the most expensive smartphone to buy outright (£689 unlocked via GiffGaff) or on contract with any network.

Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ Processor Specifications

Both run on a hardcore adrenaline fuelled Octa-core processing system with the renowned and newly hatched Snapdragon 835 for the US carriers. Meanwhile in Europe and here in the UK the Exynos 8895 Octa comes packaged instead of the Snapdragon. What might surprise you is that Samsung’s home-brewed Exynos chipset, according to Geekbench 4 and AnTuTu performed better then the Snapdragon 835 when pushed in a benchmark test. This means we here in the UK get the most efficient version of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. Needless to say the Snapdragon is still an absolute beast multitasking in the background and maintaining your open apps, capable of calculating billions of little things at once. Of course all whilst ensuring the very best possible gaming and visually optimised portable media experience in a pair of hands.

image-source-Flickr-Aaron Yoo

Battery Life & Screen Resolution

The battery on the S8 is non-removable and at 3000 milliamp efficient to do the job it’s supposed to do and GSM Arena have given it their approval with an endurance rating of eighty-four hours. The S8+ being the larger phone has a 3500 mAh battery. Curiously enough the screen display is set at a default 1480 x 720 HD+ resolution. This can be further reset in the system options and settings to Full HD at 2220 x 1080 and maximised to the full wide quadrupled potential of 720p with WQHD+ @ 2960 x1440 pixels. This enables the screen of the S8 and in-particular S8+ to utilise the extra surface area which adopts a 6.9 ratio at all times for the entire near bezeless phone.

image-source-Flickr-Aaron Yoo

Even when you tilt the S8+ while watching YouTube it will render the video between two black cinematic pillars when you pick this in-depth resolution. Providing four times as many pixels as HD. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea and you can expand the video to stretch to full-width but you’ll end up losing and clipping away some of the picture under all circumstances. This will also be the most battery draining setting. Even though the picture will be rich, crisp, popping and vibrant it wont necessarily be best for battery life. This is all accounted for with Samsung, allowing you to pick the resolution that best suits your needs. They’ve pushed the boundary so far they know what they can get away with before sparks fly.

Memory Specifications & Colour Variations

The Samsung Galaxy S8+ and S8 comes with microSD card storage for up to 256GB with 64GB of internal memory. On board it’s armed with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, state of the art memory banks which dwarfs the budget and mid-range smartphone capabilities. This ensures a fast lag free performance with such high tech internal memory only helping to boost power management. Stretching the 3000/3500 milliamp battery juice. The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are both draped in colourful variations and shades of Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Arctic Silver, Coral Blue and Maple Gold.

image-source-Flickr-Kārlis Dambrāns

Bixby

Artificial Intelligence is integrated into both new handsets with Samsung’s home-grown Bixby as well as Google Assistant. Bixby doesn’t come with all its features intact at the launch of the S8. You’ll be able to use the primary camera with Bixby by pressing the Bixby button. Bixby will then use it’s AI to identify the image in question. Take a picture of a vibrant Rose or flower in the garden and it should identify the species of flora automatically and provide helpful links. Bixby also has it’s own Bixby cards in imitation of Google Now and can be called at any time by pressing the enforced Bixby button.

Samsung Galaxy S8 & S8+ Final Impressions

Both handsets profess to be the best of the best and certainly by far they are worthy of Samsung’s own admiration, without question being the companies finest hour. However, both models do share minute design flaws in the detail that we cannot let be neglected. The Bixby button is stubbornly placed, the display is fixed at a 6.9 ratio, the bottom speakers are easily covered and partially muted when holding the device in panoramic mode, there’s no invisible infrared IR Blaster and the fingerprint sensor is also awkward to get used too and encourages sensible two handed use. All these are minor slights and one to many brush strokes on an abundant canvass.

image-source-Flickr-Kārlis Dambrāns

Like it’s predecessors the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge the new S8 and S8+ both have looks to kill, it’s another smartphone from Samsung that ticks all the boxes. Inheriting the redefined side swiping user orientated edge panel UI and successful features of it’s forebears. Spawning a new direction in shape and new AI Bixby companion to walk the 5.8 and 6.2 inch catwalk that fine tunes to the individual’s needs. An excellent pair of flagship produced with cutting edge technology and a host of accessories, the S8 series somehow falls short of itself with this incarnation but looks so good whilst doing it and achieves so much more. Both new smartphone are highly coveted, however desirable, they are but just the clearest vision of Samsung’s future Smartphone potential and a recommended best buy @EzMobiles.

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